Introduction and Research Process:
The mid-fourteenth century Black Death created panic and fear among Western Europe, causing the population to react violently. The primary document, Flagellants Attempts to Ward Off the Black Death, 1349, discusses a witness’s account of the flagellant movements that spread through Western Europe as a result of the Black Death. The flagellant movements were confraternities of men and sometimes women that came together in procession in order to repent their sins through flagellation or self-penance. Many of the flagellant movements became heretical and exemplified violence as the confraternities led the persecution of the Jews. This paper will analyze the interpretations historians have regarding the severity of the flagellant movements and persecution of the Jews during the Black Death in order to determine if the violent movements were justifiable.
The scholarly works selected for this analysis were chosen due to the different perspectives they present regarding the flagellant movements of the Black Death. The first work, The Black Death studies the reactions of the Black Death from a psychosocial perspective, arguing that fear and hysteria were leading factors of reactions like flagellation and persecution. The Black Death suggests that participants in flagellants and later the persecution of the Jews were mostly uneducated, and thus fear and ignorance encouraged the population to participate in flagellant movements. The Black Death was selected because it offered a sociological and psychological analysis of the flagellation and persecution movements. Piety and Plague: From Byzantium to the Baroque was chosen as a source due to its focus on art history. Piety and Plague: From Byzantium t...
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...ation was likely desperate for a cure to the plague, thus they were willing to trust anyone to ensure survival. Overall, I believe that the sociological issues that arose during the Black Death encouraged psychological issues that ultimately allowed processions as described in the primary document to occur.
Dols’ argument that Christians overreacted during the Black Death in comparison to the Muslims does not seem like a fair analysis. As Stearns’ argues, the Christian and Muslim societies are completely different in terms of religion, social structure and knowledge of the Black Death. Dols’ fails to take into account the major differences that may have discouraged the Muslims from reacting similarly to the Christians which makes his argument weak in my opinion. Thus, I do not support Dols’ argument because it fails to consider why Christians reacted violently.
...se of the plague’s presence by delimiting impious behavior according to biblical law, and condemning displays of impropriety. Individuals who failed to adhere to religious dictates regarding frugality and matrimony were blamed for ushering in the disease. Those who ignored social conventions regarding decent dress and gender codes were also accused of inciting God’s wrath and bringing society to ruin. According to excerpts of Rosemary Horrox’s The Black Death, the religious message of 1348 states that human pain and suffering are divine punishment for decadence, licentiousness, and frivolity. It is interesting to note that religious leaders of the 21st century state much the same thing regarding catastrophic events. This leads one to conclude that standards of propriety and decorum will always remain an inherent part of any religious diagnosis for societal ailments.
"The Black Death." World Eras. Ed. Norman J. Wilson. Vol. 1: European Renaissance and Reformation, 1350-1600. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. 435-438. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 26 Mar. 2014.
Some things are not as they seem. “Ring Around the Rosie” seems like a pleasant children’s nursery rhyme, but many believe it is actually a grisly song about the Black Death in Europe. The Black Death was a serial outbreak of the plague during the 1300s. During the Black Death, more than 20 million Europeans died. One-third of the population of the British Isles died from the plague. Moreover, one-third of the population of France died in the first year alone, and 50% of the people in France’s major cities died. Catastrophic death rates like these were common across all of Europe. However, just like the poem “Ring Around the Rosie”, the true effects of the Black Death differed from what many people believed. Though tragic, the Black Death caused several positive societal changes. Specifically, the Black Death helped society by contributing to the economic empowerment of peasants and disempowerment of nobility that led to the decline of manorialism, as well as by encouraging the development of new medical and scientific techniques by proving old methods and beliefs false.
Therefore, the responses of Christians and Muslims to the Black Death greatly differed from each other. Responses to this calamity are different because of faith and world perspectives. Both thinking that it was their God’s will, they accepted it, but thought it was brought upon them for varying reasons. Of course, nowadays, doctors and scientist know it is from bacterial strain, and with the increasingly advanced technology, it will hopefully be prevented if another outbreak ever occurs again.
Both Europeans and Islamic empires experienced the Black Death. However, regions affected by the disease reacted in various ways and differed in reasons for the cause of the disease. Muslims were peaceful, accepted the Black Death as a blessing from God, and were proactive in suggesting causes of the disease. In contrast, Europeans blamed and burned Jews for the plague, rebelled against authority, and saw the illness as a punishment for sins. Even though Christians and Muslims believe in the same God, the responses and actions of both regions toward the Black Death differed immensely.
Both religions were terrified of the disease, but the Muslims were more accepting of it. Muslims did not blame anybody for the plague, they just accepted it as a type of holy penance and moved on. Christians, on the other hand, blamed the Jews. Many Jews in Europe were forced to convert to Christianity because of the deadly discrimination they were receiving, therefore, leading them to “convert or die”. Even some Jews that converted also died by the hands of Christians. One might think that this discrimination against the Jews during this time was like a miniature holocaust. In Document seven of the D.B.Q., the poem “Burning of the Jews” written in 1348 by Johannes Nohl is a perfect example of what happened to a lot of Jews when they crossed paths with angry
However, the Christians claimed that the Jews were less affected by the black death. The fact that the Jews were less effected by the black death is not because the plague was their fault but it was due to the sanitary practices of the Jewish law. For example, the Jewish law requires one to wash his or hands several times throughout the day. They must wash before they eat, after they leave the bathroom and at least once a week the Jews bathe for Sabbath. In the medieval world one can go about half his lifetime without ever having to wash his hands. This shows how the sanitary conditions for the Jews were always far superior than the general sanitary conditions everyone else followed which explains why the Jews were less effected by the plague. Although all this makes sense to the Christians the fact that the Jews were less affected was very shocking and therefore they blamed
But, what about the enemy that they could not see; the enemy that would plummet Medieval Europe into an age of darkness and, ultimately, death? The Bubonic Plague was a pivotal moment for Europe, bringing forth a new era of social mobility, thought, and artistic expression, leading to the Renaissance. This is very evident, as one looks farther into the supply and demand of labour, the altering perspective of the church, and the new movement in artwork.
The destruction and devastation caused by the 'Black Death' of the Middle Ages was a phenomenon left to wonder at in text books of historical Europe. An unstoppable plague swept the continent taking as much as eighty percent of the European population along with it (Forsyth).
No other epidemic reaches the level of the Black Death which took place from 1348 to 1350. The epidemic, better regarded as a pandemic, shook Europe, Asia, and North Africa; therefore it deems as the one of the most devastating events in world history. In The Black Death: The Great Mortality of 1348-1350, John Aberth, compiles primary sources in order to examine the origins and outcomes of this deadly disease. The author, a history professor and associate academic dean at Vermont’s Castleton State College, specializes in medieval history and the Black Death. He wrote the book in order to provide multiple perspectives of the plague’s impact. Primarily, pathogens started the whole phenomenon; however, geological, economic, and social conditions
The Islamic world had suffered at least five major plague epidemics before the Black Death in the 14th century, yet the Black Death was far more deadly than any of the previous epidemics that had hit the Islamic world. Medieval Muslims had no scientific explanation for the disease and thus Islamic societies began to believe that the plague was of divine origin. Religious teachers declared that for the righteous Muslim death by plague was a blessing, a martyrdom like death in defense of Islam, which ensured the victim a heavenly reward. For the infidel death by plague was considered a punishment for sin that condemned one to hell. As with all acts of Allah, the pestilence seen as just, merciful, good, and could not be avoided. Since God specifically chose each victim, there could be no random spreading of the disease by contagion, nor could one escape death by flight or medication. From these views, Muslims formed three basic tenets for coping with the plague: The disease was a mercy and martyrdom from God for the faithful Muslim but a punishment for the infidel, a Muslim should neither enter nor flee a plague-stricken land, and there was ...
The epoch of Medieval European history concerning the vast and complicated witch hunts spanning from 1450 to 1750 is demonstrative of the socioeconomic, religious, and cultural changes that were occurring within a population that was unprepared for the reconstruction of society. Though numerous conclusions concerning the witch trials, why they occurred, and who was prosecuted have been founded within agreement there remains interpretations that expand on the central beliefs. Through examining multiple arguments a greater understanding of this period can be observed as there remains a staggering amount of catalysts and consequences that emerged. In the pursuit of a greater understanding three different interpretations will be presented. These interpretations which involve Brian Levack’s “The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe,” Eric Boss’s “Syphilis, Misogyny, and Witchcraft in 16th-Century Europe,” and Nachman Ben-Yehuda’s “The European Witch Craze of the 14th to 17th centuries: A Sociologist’s Perspective,” share various opinions while developing their own theories. The comparison of these observations will focus upon why the witch trials occurred when they did, why did they stop when they did, why did the witch trials occur when they did, and who was persecuted and who was responsible for the identification and punishing of witches.
Chaos struck all-over Europe in the 14th century; no social class or individual was immune from this bizarre mysterious death. Historians estimated that this unidentifiable disease killed a total of one-third of Europe’s population by the 1350’s. Now in today’s society scientists classify the unidentifiable disease as the bubonic plague also referred to as the Black Death. During 14th century European-society, there was no logical medical knowledge; instead, people resorted to supplementary explanations, such as God punishing the sinners, or other religious groups outside of Christianity misbehaving (Black Death 1). In this time period, oral tradition was still common among the illiterate, luckily for the upper class society several people were literate and documented the event of the Black Death by letters, poems, or even stories. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio is a fictional medieval allegory story within its frame narrative has 100 tales that documented life in Italy occurring the same years as the bubonic plague. In the text the Decameron, author Boccaccio, depicts a story about ten wealthy Italians fleeing to the countryside after news of this mysterious deadly disease. Through interpretations of the story, Boccaccio gives insight about the Black Death’s affects, believed causations of the time, moral and religion standard, and response of the people in Florence Italy. In addition, found from examining the texts, information not related to the Black Death such as insight about the affects the Decameron had on society, Boccaccio’s reason for creating the story, and the intended audience. (Boccaccio).
The Black Death plagues had disastrous consequences for Europe in the 14th century. After the initial outbreak in Europe, 1347, it continued for around five years and then mysteriously disappeared. However it broke out again in the 1360s and every few decades thereafter till around 1700. The European epidemic was an outbreak of the bubonic plague, which began in Asia and spread across trade routes. When it reached Europe, a path of destruction began to emerge. Medieval society was tossed into disarray, economies were fractured, the face of culture and religion changed forever. However the plagues devastation was not all chaotic, there were benefits too, such as modern labour movements, improvements in medicine and a new outlook on life. Therefore in order to analyse the impact the Black Death had on societies in the 14th century, this essay will consider the social, economic, cultural and religious factors in order to reach an overall conclusion.
The 14th century is ranked as one of the most distressing epochs in the history of Western culture. With the transformation of the Holy Roman Empire into a greatly destabilized elective monarchy, the transfer in political power from Germany to France and the escalation of England's power comes the end of the High Middle Ages in which Europe sank into a time of despair. Many events were responsible for this decline and loss of hope. Among them, three deserve special attention: the Great Schism, the Hundred Years War, and the Black Plague.